


Is It Time?

by CasinoLights



Series: I Knew You’d be the Death of Me [1]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kisses, Oneshot, Resolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 10:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6850462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CasinoLights/pseuds/CasinoLights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the NCR's victory at Hoover Dam, Courier Six's companions have started going their own ways. Now it's Boone's turn. He planned on sneaking out while everyone was asleep to avoid any long goodbyes, but he doesn't know the Courier has already been awake for hours. In the Presidential Suite of the Lucky 38 sometime before dawn, Boone and the Courier have to face each other as well as the emotions they've been burying for months. Very loosely based on the song "The Runner and the Lover" by Former Vandal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Is It Time?

Boone feels his hands shaking and he bites his lip hard. They don’t have faces anymore, but in his dreams he still sees bodies dropping one by one just outside Bitter Springs. Last night, though, some of them were wearing Legion crimson. A reminder of his last visit there, with the courier at his side.

He gets up and pulls on a shirt that looks relatively clean before quietly getting his things together. The wardrobe door creaks as it opens and he quickly scans the room, readying a hasty explanation in case the courier’s other companions wake up. Veronica only huffs in her sleep and Raul mutters something unintelligible.

Cass’s and Gannon’s beds are neatly made, as they have been for weeks. Cass left first, off to explore the Mojave and find her fortune. Gannon followed a few weeks later, claiming he missed the teacher’s life. Boone knows it’s his turn now, but he feels less certain now that he’s actually packing his bag.

Better to leave quietly now than risk changing his mind by facing the courier. He doesn’t want to see the look in her eyes when she finds out another of her friends has gone their own way. She has a way of making him think differently about things, and that is why he has to go. If he doesn’t, he knows he’ll stay until she gets tired of him… or until one of them dies.

Every conversation that started with _“Can I ask you something, Boone?”_ starts to play in his mind like a skipping record. Now, after over a year, it occurs to him that he’s never asked her about herself before. She’s told him plenty, but compared to how much she knows about him, it doesn’t feel like enough.

Now, nothing feels like enough.

He passes her room, his bag slung over one shoulder and his rifle over the other, and his stomach tightens when he doesn’t see her familiar form draped across her bed. There’s light coming from the rec room, but he doesn’t hear anything to indicate that she’s in there. He inhales deeply and glances around the suite again, one last time, before tapping the button on the elevator.

It dings, and he cringes. If she is awake, she definitely heard that. And she isn’t going to be happy when she realizes he’s leaving.

As if on cue, the soft _pad, pad, pad_ of bare feet on tile sounds from the kitchen. The courier stands in the doorway, hair tangled and shirt half-unbuttoned, and she stares at Boone expectantly.

Her voice comes out in a rasp, and suddenly she’s the only thing in the room. “You, too?”

Boone starts to feel very aware of how quiet the suite is. “…I’m reenlisting.”

“That’s…” Her voice falters, so she clears her throat with a quiet _huh-hm._ “That’ll be good. I know you’ll do great out there.”  
As usual, he doesn’t know what to say. Her eyes are asking more questions than he knows what to do with, even though she knows him too well to ask them. He feels overwhelmed, and he knows exactly why. The very same cocktail of emotions was served to him when he and Carla first kissed. And now, just like that night in a sleepy Vegas diner, he’s fallen for the wrong girl at the wrong time.

“So…” she says after too long. “Are you going to be stationed at the Dam, or…”

“Wherever they send us.”

“Oh. I see.” She remembers the time she asked _“which dam?”_ and he answered it without making her feel stupid. After getting shot, she needed that kind of patience. “Well, you’re always welcome here. You can come visit whenever you want.”

“Thanks.” He wants to thank her for so much more than this, but if he says something now, just before running from it, neither of them will forgive him. There’s nothing he wants more than for her to live and live well—and she can’t do that if he says what he wants to.

She knows he feels that way, too. It’s why she’s never said anything before, even when the tension between them was so palpable that it ached. “Just when I get used to you, you up and leave.” She hides her disappointment with a soft chuckle. “I bet you do this to all the girls.”

He’s used to her teasing, but lately it just makes him more conscious of how different she is from “all the girls.”

“I’ll miss you.” It’s been in his mind since he made his decision, trying to reword itself into something befitting how deeply she’s affected him since they met in Novac. But those three words are all his efforts amounted to.

Still, when she smiles, he knows it was enough. “I’ll miss you, too. What you’ve done… what you’ve been to me has meant so much. Thank you, Boone. For everything.”

Her voice cracks at the end, and it hits him. It swells in his chest and ties his stomach into knots. He’s in love with her.

She approaches him with slow, careful steps and hugs him the way she hugged the others when they left. He leans toward her until his forehead meets her shoulder and in response, she turns her head and presses her lips to his temple.

That single, gentle sign of affection sets him off. He cradles the back of her head in one hand and cups her cheek in the other before kissing her hurriedly. It’s been too long, and his lips are clumsy, but she winds her arms around his neck regardless.

She savors instead of ignores the things he isn’t proud of, like the way their teeth click together and the way his tongue fights harshly with hers. They’ve been waiting for this longer than they ever realized before. He kisses her lips, then her cheek, then her jaw, and she whispers a desperate _“I love you”_ against his skin.

That pulls him away as quickly as her first kiss drew him in. “You shouldn’t. I’m gonna be the death of you.”

“Funny,” she says, cheeks flushed and breath hot. “You said _I’d_ be the death of _you_ , too. Call it a draw?”

He looks at her for a moment, taking her in just the way he did that first night in Novac—sizing her up, assessing the threat, trying to decipher what’s in her head—before hooking his arm around her back and pressing their lips together again.

“Don’t go,” she manages between rushed kisses. After a few more, she pulls away and slides her hands down to his. “You and I, we can do anything we want. Hunt down the Legion, or help the Followers, or travel until our legs give out. I don’t care.”

He gives something that could look like a smile, which elicits a much larger one from her. “I love you,” he rasps. He swallows, hoping to push down the dryness in his throat, and says it more firmly. _“I love you.”_

“Then stay.”

He nods. “I’m with you.” It doesn’t seem to be enough of a promise, so he clasps both of her hands together and adds, “Until the end.”

**Author's Note:**

> A friend told me that the song "The Runner and the Lover" by Former Vandal fit Boone/Courier, and she was right. While listening to it on repeat, I wrote this. I posted it on my tumblr page, where it got enough attention for me to feel better about posting it here, too. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
